


Facsimile

by thedevilchicken



Series: Epistolic [4]
Category: The Following
Genre: M/M, Rough Sex, Sexual Content, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 01:44:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2489897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part four in the <i>Epistolic</i> series. </p>
<p>Joe finds out what <i>worth it</i> actually meant; it's not what he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Facsimile

The sign on the door read 'Dr Ryan Hardy-Carroll.'

Joe couldn't help but chuckle to himself as he stood there by the door and wondered exactly how long that sign had been there without him knowing it. The _Dr_ had been added much more recently than the rest, a plastic sticker stuck to the door itself beside the rest of it that was, while admittedly also plastic, an actual sign; it could have been there for years by that point, waiting for this moment. Apparently, Ryan had a sense of humour after all.

"When did he...?" he asked, gesturing at the door and it's delightfully amusing signage. Gesturing as best he could with his hands cuffed there behind his back, that was; he hadn't yet managed to persuade his custodian that he had no nefarious plans to bolt for the nearest country that lacked an extradition treaty, and she wasn't precisely trusting. She was rather more dubious than trusting, not to mention slightly surly with it. He wished he could say he were surprised by her attitude given the length of their acquaintance and his lack of recent ill will toward her, but there was at least a scintilla of logic to it. 

Max shrugged. "Maybe two years," she told him. She opened the door and held it open for him with a rather acerbic smile, which tended to describe her attitude toward him as a whole.

"Thank you, Max." He gave her a very deliberate, manifestly grateful incline of his head and he stepped inside. As much as she clearly believed he was plotting her death, the only thing he had plans to kill her with was kindness. To be fair, he supposed he'd also never quite succeeded in converting her lovely ex-spouse, but that wasn't going to keep him from trying with the two of them; that wasn't just because once upon a time Ryan had made him the most intriguing of bets, resting on the notion that he'd never hear a kind word from either of them, but it certainly did nothing to put him off. So far, however, Joe was losing that bet. He didn't enjoy losing, and more than that: he actually wanted to see if Ryan would deliver the prize that he'd promised. It would be really quite something if he did. 

He stepped inside. It was a fairly typical university office, he thought, at least for a semi-senior member of staff in an inner-city establishment such as this; it was a moderately sized corner office, a large modern desk for the modern space sitting under the window, an old sofa on which he could imagine Ryan nodding off on a regular basis, a potted plant on the window sill that he had no doubt somebody else had ownership of watering. There was an article on the use of fMRI in criminal justice sitting on his desk with a highlighter pen left on top of it, turned to page seven and already bearing a series of coffee stains, and one entire wall of the room was covered completely with books. They were mostly crime- and criminology-related, a fair chunk of psychology and a smattering of law, though off in the corner he thought he spied a copy of _The Gothic Sea_. He chuckled wryly as he looked at it. That was Ryan, ever the romantic.

A couple of the other books were also his, he noticed as he gave the shelves a leisurely perusal, though they were all more clearly acceptable and hadn't, to his knowledge, incited anyone to grisly murder. His monograph on romantic literature had caused quite a stir, yes, despite the fact that there was precious little of the controversial in it, but his two brief texts on criminal psychology were actually very well respected in their field. The academic community had expected something of a freak show, he suspected, but it had turned out that quite to the contrary, quite against all expectations, he had an excellent mind for systematic psychological inquiry and the subsequent production of academic literature therefrom. He'd speculated on more than one occasion that perhaps psychology was where he should have focused his attention all along, though he had to confess himself still quite enamoured of the English language.

"He said you should sit down and wait," Max told him. She'd taken up a position standing by the closed door with one hand on her hip and the other resting on her sidearm, holster open. It was almost sweet that she took him so seriously as a threat after all this time, when he'd been so innocuous and often so very useful. Joe supposed she still worried for her uncle, though her uncle plainly did not worry for himself.

Still, Ryan would be there shortly and angering Max in the meantime would do him absolutely no earthly good. Besides, he had a bet to win. He took a seat at Ryan's desk and settled in to wait. 

***

Joe had received his PhD in Psychology, via the reputable distance learning arm of a perfectly reputable institution, in just under three years. His thesis explored criminal psychopathy from a new and interesting perspective - that of an actual convicted, diagnosed criminal psychopath - and frankly he'd had such unprecedented access to such a wide array of entertaining, diverse and often utterly lunatic convicted killers there in his New York penitentiary abode that he'd enjoyed every single second of it. It was strangely soothing to know there were infinitely crazier people in the world than him. Of course, he wasn't actually crazy at all.

His supervisors had been terrified when they'd come to the prison for his oral examination; the poor things had been marched in by armed guards and sat down at the table behind the locked door, eyes just a fraction too wide to be considered at their ease as they peered at him, shackled there to the table for their protection. The external examiner with them was almost trembling. Personally, he'd found that all hilarious. Of course, when he'd spoken he'd been perfectly polite. He'd earned his qualification.

He'd been permitted to testify in court once he was past the second year of his doctoral research and had already proven himself to be something of a revelation to the field; following the first couple of cases, his expert testimony had actually been sought out quite often, and by various agencies. They'd sit him in the back of a Department of Corrections minivan or some other such atrocity of automotive engineering, in what was usually a three-vehicle convoy just in case he did still harbour a particular desire to fly the coop, and drive him out to the courthouse were it close enough to home. They'd wheel in a PC and he'd testify via video call were it farther afield, which it often was, although apparently the jurors involved were always thrilled, to a greater or lesser extent, by his actual physical presence. He'd taken to working for the prosecution and Ryan seemed to find the whole thing hilarious in his own subtle way, even if he never said as much. Once, they testified on the same case but for opposite sides; Ryan seemed to find that even more amusing. 

Sometimes, Ryan had the guards lock him into the courthouse cells with Joe while one or both waited to take the stand, as if that were a condition of Joe's being allowed out of prison that he be there, and sometimes it was: frankly, when one of them was hired then the reality implicit there was that they both were. Cost-efficiency often meant that the wholly unpaid convict volunteer got the job and the college professor came along as a little added extra, lending a slice more legitimacy to proceedings. And so, Ryan would be sitting in the courtroom or he'd walk down into the cellblock and it was almost as if the men on duty there had been warned that he might be coming, briefed on the fact that he might ask a seemingly ridiculous question and that the answer, in spite of protocol or the rule of all good common sense, should be yes. 

He'd step into the cell and take a seat close by, quite deliberately not touching but too close to be considered strictly casual. Joe had to admit that he liked it when he did that. It meant they met with just a tad more frequency and it made everyone who saw them there just _so_ very, undeniably, uncomfortable. 

Case consultation had come once his PhD had been conferred. The first was the fairly simple affair of a killer down in Texas, but Joe's profile based on the evidence and his general insights on the case had helped to bring them an arrest, and then a subsequent conviction. Thus was the beginning of his strange new reputation. When the FBI did finally come calling, he'd worked nine cases over just six months with a 100% rate of success. He couldn't blame them for wanting to recruit him, at least in the limited capacity that was possible. He and Ryan were rock stars of serious crime.

Six months later and he'd assisted in resolving four long-standing cases, complicated and expensive cases, which he supposed was the only reason they had ever even dreamed of suggesting _this_ little arrangement. And it still seemed like something of a stretch, even to him. Of course, if didn't hurt that by that time Joe had been nothing less than the very model prisoner for five complete, entire years. He was married to a well-respected ex-agent of the FBI and current college educator, and he was himself by then an acknowledged expert not only in the field of literature but also in psychology. Ryan had also returned to Bureau consultancy, which was another positive in Joe's favour, not to mention his forays into Interpol, legal liaisons with agencies in Europe and South America. And, to top it all off, Joe's late forties were treating him well; he looked even better than ever, not that he actually believed that had any bearing on the decision, and he found that he'd lost none of his charm, which probably _did_. It was quite an exciting time for him. Perhaps not the thrill of his former occupations, but still an entertainment.

"We're going to release you into Agent Hardy's custody," he'd been told, as the cuffs were locked. He'd found it particularly cruel of them to lock his arms behind his back and he said so, not that anyone in the room had actually paid the blindest bit of attention. Max stepped forward instead. She'd married Mike Weston, then divorced him, then started to date him again, all in the space of the five years in which Joe had been vaguely acquainted with her. She'd remained a Hardy, rather than a Weston, throughout. That wasn't exactly the most entertaining fact about Max, however; on the other hand, the fact that she'd joined the FBI, been assigned to cybercrime for the past year and a half and yet still somehow ended up there, taking custody of a convicted killer against every scrap of logic Joe could summon… well, that was interesting. 

"My dear niece!" Joe exclaimed, all over-the-top exuberance because although he knew she'd try to hate it completely, he did have a bet to win and he was determined that he'd charm her into submission. It would just take some time, and time was not in short supply. "I'd give you a hug but as you can see, that's not currently a possibility." He jangled the chain linking his handcuffed wrists behind his back. 

Max rolled her eyes. The more he knew about her, the more she seemed like Ryan in miniature, perhaps just slightly more self-righteous and obviously more wary, particularly of him. The overall effect was strangely endearing, however, which he supposed was apt as they were technically related and had been for some time.

"Uncle Joe," she'd said, with a pointed look. The other agents in the room had looked a tad unsettled by their interaction but with Max's quick signature on the appropriate paperwork they were off and away from the prison. And now here they were, just the two of them, though he assumed that multiple teams of agents had been dispatched to keep a watchful eye out from afar. They'd probably been with them since the prison. They were probably sitting outside even then, in an all-too-obvious black SUV, sipping coffee and asking themselves exactly why Joe Carroll had been allowed out of jail, what for, _how_. He did have questions about that himself. 

A couple of the books on the shelves were Ryan's. There was a copy of _Poetry of a Killer_ sitting there, right up in the top corner of the bookshelf with copies of Carrie Cooke's two trashy, sensationalist, true crime bestsellers. Joe Carroll and his cult did still sell quite well, if Ryan's occasional cheques were anything to go by. Then up popped Ryan's name again, this time on his textbook on sociopathy. Ryan had got his PhD in Psychology somewhere in the region of six weeks earlier than Joe had, from the self-same institution, which had been the source of merciless teasing. At least, what counted for merciless teasing where the somewhat taciturn Ryan was involved. Joe recalled his own brief period of sulking, which Ryan seemed to enjoy quite extensively, then reminded himself and more importantly reminded Ryan that he was actually working on completing his _second_ doctorate. 

Ryan's focus was the role of narcissism in sexually sadistic serial murder. Oddly enough, it was a topic that had brought the two of them even more closely together.

Joe had actually found a kind of perverse enjoyment in being the subject of Ryan's thesis, especially as he'd obviously already been the subject of his first book; he'd read the book, of course, and over the years, with the benefit of the perspective lent by time, he'd come to agree with the majority of its conclusions. But still, it had always felt so cold and impersonal, as if he'd had no input at all though his face was splashed all over the cover. The interviews for Ryan's research then, however; it was almost like the first night of married life they'd spent together, all that time ago, Joe laying himself so utterly, metaphorically, bare for Ryan's perusal and doing it more or less just because he'd asked him to. The thrill of not knowing who he'd share that knowledge with was still right there, imminent and fresh, forcing him to trust Ryan in a way that he could never trust another living soul; the second time around, it just came with the added benefit of already knowing exactly where they stood. And where they stood was something Joe enjoyed immensely, now that Ryan had come to understand himself, now he'd ceased to be conflicted.

The office door opened; Ryan entered and Joe rose. Somehow he'd never moved past the stage where seeing Ryan appear made his chest tighten just a fraction, as it did then, but for a moment nothing further happened. Joe hadn't expected him to sprint into his arms, of course, especially not as they were still cuffed behind his back, but the complete lack of acknowledgement was somewhat baffling. 

"Time to leave," Ryan said, barely even looking at him. He picked up his laptop case, which was apparently the only reason that any of them had gone by his office in the first place. Joe realised he'd been searching the choice for an ulterior motive and there just wasn't one. 

"And here I was just getting comfortable," he quipped, suddenly irked, rattling the chain of his handcuffs. 

Max gave an irritated sigh. Ryan didn't react at all.

The three of them left together. 

***

They rode in Mike Weston's SUV, and the trip took hours, close to the entire day, despite Agent Weston's excellent driving and the surprisingly minimal traffic there on the roads. They stopped for a comfort break and to find something passing for food at a petrol station on their way south, which was actually quite considerably worse than anything he'd ever been served in prison. The one plus point in the hours of near-silence was that Ryan made Max give him the keys to Joe's handcuffs; she did it grudgingly but she _did_ do it, passing the keys into the back seat of the SUV as Agent Weston drove and ignored all three of his passengers. Ryan unlocked the cuffs as Max watched them from the front passenger seat, hawk-like, as if Joe intended to leap from the moving vehicle at any moment or throttle Ryan with his bare hands. He did neither, hadn't even considered either, just gave Ryan's thigh a grateful little pat despite his rather pointed silence in Joe's general direction and sat back in the seat in just the way that the cuffs had previously prevented. 

Max scowled. If he hadn't known better, Joe would have guessed this was the first time she'd seen the two of them together. It wasn't; apparently, she was just lingering on in the throes of disgust where their relationship was concerned. Very, very briefly, Ryan gave him a look that told him he was _still_ losing their bet. And then the stonewall of non-communication once again resumed. 

Their ultimate destination turned out to be, disturbingly, just a stone's throw away from Joe's former place of employ. Of course, the moderately upmarket environs of Winslow weren't exactly teeming with motels, but somehow the FBI had managed to locate one perhaps a 15 minute drive away from campus. Joe couldn't recall it ever having existed when he'd been a local there, but then again he was well aware that a deal of time had passed since then. He was older, and hopefully wiser. After all, he had Ryan there to act as his moral compass and his Hawthorne and Shelley had barely been touched in years. Poe, however, would always be his favourite. He'd never be rid of that.

Judging from activity alone, it almost seemed that half of the Bureau had checked into the small motel. In reality, there were perhaps six agents there all just in constant movement, and who had apparently all arrived in individual vehicles. The car park was half-filled with their shiny black SUVs, the anonymous agents in their smart attire all busily moving from one area to another as though they actually had important functions to perform; Joe might actually have believed that had they not all been carrying coffee cups and glancing curiously at the recent arrivals, as the four of them exited the vehicle, rather than actually maintaining a solid purpose. At least four of the agents slipped a hand less than discreetly to their sidearms, however. Apparently, something about Joe's presence turned otherwise perfectly sensible, rational people into trigger-happy cowboys, which he had to say he still found somewhat entertaining. 

They were hustled into a room from which almost all of the furniture had been removed in favour of a few worn desks and office chairs that still looked brand new, albeit brand new from a flat pack box. There were more agents inside, five or six. Agent Mendez looked up from her computer and set her jaw as her gaze settled on him, then shifted her attention to Agent Weston; Joe had assumed that Mendez was in charge as he'd entered the room, but he discerned quite quickly, as Agent Weston looked over her shoulder to check her screen, and to check her work, that that was not precisely the case. It seemed Mike Weston's career was back on course after its previous little detours, if the way they all deferred to him were a useful yardstick. Ryan had been trying to encourage Weston to rekindle his dwindling career for some time, and Joe, although he couldn't admit to caring about that career either way, was quietly surprised by the change in Weston's fortunes. Ryan, it seemed, made quite an efficient career counsellor. 

Joe was ushered to an empty desk and sat himself down in one of those highly uncomfortable new office chairs that sadly offered very little in the way of lumbar support. Ryan fished his laptop from his bag and set it up on the table, pulling up a seat beside him, and in thirty seconds' time Joe understood exactly why he was there. Ryan said very little, had said very little throughout the day in general, but the photos he showed him were dreadfully, wonderfully familiar. Joe had a copycat.

"We're _sure_ he's not involved?" Joe cheerfully pretended that he hadn't heard this, as did Ryan, both ignoring the agents speaking just outside the open window. He supposed he couldn't be surprised that they'd noticed him, sticking out like a sore thumb as he did in his prison attire.

"Sure. He checked out."

"But it's _always_ him!"

"It wasn't the last time."

Joe just gave a faint shake of his head, shared the briefest of glances with Ryan - or rather he attempted to and found Ryan singularly unwilling - and settled down to work. It was perhaps a good thing that he still kept people guessing. He certainly had no inclination to prove himself any further to anyone, but it might just keep them all on their toes.

As the sky darkened outside, the other agents began to disappear into their own rooms or into their vehicles, setting off on what seemed to Joe a poorly planned mixture of patrol and stakeout, considering their lack of actual viable suspects and the fact that campus security would be out and about en masse. Their suspect list seemed awfully predictable when he'd had the time to examine it - two professors and a doctoral student from the literature department where Joe had once worked - and he had no great faith that those leads would prove at all useful. Everything he saw was wrong. Despite his initial shiver of pride, his frisson of excitement, he was starting to understand that this was _not_ what it seemed at first glance. He was working on putting his finger on exactly what the issue was while the others worked on their suspects' backgrounds. Joe still didn't understand why any of them were suspects in the first place. Perhaps Ryan hadn't been in tip-top condition, or he'd been called in on the job at the same time as Joe had, because they basically operated in tandem: Ryan _had_ to share that unsettled feeling. 

Agent numbers in the room dwindled gradually, diminishing over the course of perhaps two hours until Max came in, three large pizzas and a bag full of awful fizzy drinks in her arms, and Joe looked up to realise they were down to five from closer to fifteen or twenty, though he suspected some of those agents had joined them expressly to keep an eye on him. It was perhaps best that numbers weren't high then as their next step was something akin to interrogation, Joe attempting to give them truthful answers as he sat there surrounded though it seemed to go against his very nature, Ryan filling the investigative blanks in between. It transpired that six girls were dead, six blonde girls, quite beautiful though not quite Joe's type. Somehow that seemed an important observation to make. Not everything here was as Joe would have done it. Far from it, in fact. 

The evening wore on. They all imbibed just a little too much caffeine to function effectively and Agent Weston dismissed them to their rooms with surprising authority. Mendez picked up a couple of files and the remains of a pizza to take with her. Max and her charming ex-husband loitered by the door and Ryan motioned for Joe to join him, making eye contact for the first time in hours; the look on Max's face as they passed her by wasn't quite the usual scowl reserved for all things Joe, but there was certainly a hint of it about her. She practically slammed the door behind them and stalked off to her room, trying to pretend that she wouldn't join Weston when all other doors were closed, once she'd given her uncle an entirely obvious look of warning. Joe was _still_ losing that bet. Ryan held her gaze for a second; a second later, he ushered Joe into the room next door. 

Joe was faintly surprised, given the day's events and the stony silence between them, to find that Ryan stepped in behind him, closed the door, turned the latch and locked them both inside. Quite why he was surprised was something of a mystery as this was hardly the first time they'd been alone together. They were close colleagues, of course, even aside from their well-observed and well-documented personal relationship. It just seemed _different_ somehow, standing there in a middle-of-the-road motel room, not too cheap but not exactly a night at the Ritz, watching as Ryan toed off his trainers without unlacing them first and sat himself down on the bed, his back up against the headboard. It was almost as if he'd just stepped out of his own life and straight into Ryan's, the one that he led while Joe was locked away in federal prison. It was disconcerting to say the least. It was like he was suddenly unwanted.

Ryan picked up a pair of glasses from the table by the bed and put them on as he picked up and opened a folder marked _confidential_. Joe's eyes almost popped right out of his head. 

"Glasses?" he asked, before he even thought to stop himself, still standing uselessly by the door.

Ryan glanced up from his folder, brows raised. He looked at him over the rim of said glasses. "See if you don't need 'em when you hit fifty," he replied, and all Joe could do was concede the point with a shrug. It had been 15 years since he'd last seen Winslow, back then before the trial, 15 years since he'd first crossed paths with Ryan, and he supposed he did feel older for it. But the worst part was realising that the constituent pieces of Ryan's life without him were not quite what he'd thought they were. It was strange to find himself on the periphery, ignored. He wondered what else he'd missed; it couldn't be just a name change and a pair of glasses. 

He stepped out of his prison shoes and moved toward the bed; Ryan closed the folder, not quite abruptly but at least moderately swiftly. Joe decided to pretend he hadn't noticed he was hiding something. It seemed prudent to work out what it was before they came to confrontation.

"There's clothes in the bag," Ryan said, gesturing faintly with a lift of his chin toward the dresser across the room. Joe took the hint and went to look through it. When he came back with a pair of plaid pyjama bottoms and a vest, he almost laughed at the surreality of it all. The only odder thing was that in spite of it all, in spite of Ryan's pointed silences and the vile pseudo-reconstructions of his murders, he really didn't seem to mind. He was out of his confinement for a time and Ryan would come round. He knew him better than this. Everything would turn out just the way he wanted.

***

They went to Winslow in the morning. 

Joe's stomach was unexpectedly tied in knots the whole way there as they drove. Max kept saying she thought it was a _really_ bad idea and although Ryan set forth a rather persuasive case for it rather than against, Weston wasn't there to add his voice to the fray and Joe found that he actually agreed with Hardy Jr. This was a terrible, terrible plan. He was so excited by it that he could barely contain himself. Conversely, he felt sick through and through.

They had a new dean there, of course, one who knew Joe only by reputation and his photograph on television, but the office where they met her had barely changed at all. She told them in no uncertain terms that she did not want Joe Carroll on her campus. Ryan told her it was necessary. Mendez promised he'd be supervised at all times and shot dead without hesitation if he stepped just an inch out of line. The fact that she meant it was probably what swayed the dean in their favour.

They visited the sites of the body dumps first. The campus had changed very little since his time, just the occasional new edifice here and there, and so Joe mostly took the lead. In the suit that Ryan had brought in for him, with just the sort of tie he'd have chosen for himself and a waistcoat just like one that he'd owned before his first conviction, it was even a little something like Professor Carroll was back on campus, which had to be alarming for certain alumni, given circumstances. People certainly were giving him both a wide berth and a series of very strange looks.

The first two locations were the same as Joe's had been, though the photos showed distinct differences in the posing, the eyes gouged so crudely that Joe was frankly appalled by it. He'd spent a great deal of time comparing other killers' methods to his own but he was slowly finding that the idea of a copycat was so fundamentally offensive to him that erased every trace of excitement, and his usually affable public demeanour became markedly dour. He was aware that Max and Agent Mendez were both watching him rather closely, ever more closely, but he just couldn't help himself. This killer was careless, slapdash, immature. Probably a student, probably an undergraduate, and probably a very average one at that. He saw no signs of originality there, not even adequate forgeries, only _very_ poor imitations; there were no signs that anything else was at work here, certainly not a new chapter of his seemingly neverending cult, _obviously_ no one like himself. It simultaneously stroked and prickled at his ego that the FBI had been so concerned by this that they'd sent an entire team to investigate, that they'd assigned an entire task force. 

"This is ludicrous!" he told them all, as they stood there in his former office perhaps an hour and half after they'd arrived. The office's current tenant looked more than a little concerned by this; no doubt he'd been posed some odd questions over the years concerning his predecessor, or rather his predecessor's predecessor, and now here he was, gesturing expansively to anyone who could potentially listen. Max and Mendez positioned themselves between Joe and the new professor and between Joe and the door respectively, as if this little outburst were somehow a prelude to murderous rage yet to come. It wasn't, but Ryan, far from helping in any conceivable fashion, wasn't even watching. He was skimming the spines of the texts on the bookshelf, near infuriatingly uninterested in the whole affair. Just the way he'd seemed all morning and throughout the previous day, now Joe thought about it. He might as well have been absent.

Ryan had actually written a novel himself and was part of the way through another; a copy of the first was sitting on that shelf, though Joe couldn't currently take any pleasure in the thought. He'd turned out to be something of a decent author and though Joe couldn't find much to be surprised about in that, he _was_ surprised that he didn't feel more jealousy for his talent. Ryan brought along chapters for Joe to read in his cell once he'd left, though occasionally the urge would strike and Joe would lounge there in the dismal conjugal space they frequented once each month, reading aloud though Ryan seemed to despise it when he did so. The narrator's voice was just like Joe's, with a slightly more American twist, and so he'd put on an interesting facsimile of Ryan's accent in which to read. To be honest, half the time he found himself wondering how more than half his life in this country hadn't altered his accent at all, whether his Englishness were genuine or just an affectation at this point, and his Ryan-voice were closer to the truth of it. Fortunately, however, his impression was so awful that he had no desire to change and Ryan seemed barely less nonplussed by listening to it than Joe was now by his copycat.

" _He_ is not doing this," Joe said, gesturing at the professor who was now practically cowering behind Max. "I have every faith that he's a terribly pleasant man and a terribly average teacher and probably can't even stand the sight of his own blood." The man in question didn't even look like he might disagree with Joe's assessment. "He makes his living from horribly dry, outstandingly conventional critiques of Shakespearean comedies, for heaven's sake. It's not him!"

Ryan snorted. Joe practically bored holes in his back with the heat of his glowering and Mendez had the utter gall to look amused, but at least Ryan had had a reaction. 

"We should go," Mendez said, her hand finally leaving the butt of her gun there at her hip now that Ryan had apparently dispelled their communal tension. Max looked much less murderous and even the professor seemed much less likely to faint away in front of his desk from the stress of it all. Joe, on the other hand, remained somewhat incensed. 

"Yes, we should," he agreed. "This was a _complete_ waste of my time."

The whole sordid affair was nothing but an embarrassment to all concerned, hardly fitting for the 15th anniversary of his killings there at Winslow. He seethed quietly to himself all the way back to the motel, no longer managing to take any real pleasure in being outside of his usual confinement for the first real time since his last escape. Not including their little escapade on the Gray estate, of course, or day excursions to courthouses. Someone was ruining his good name, or at least taking liberal advantage of it. He could live without a fan like that and frankly, he expected better. 

And, he realised, realised somewhat bitterly at that, he'd almost hoped that no new events would mark the anniversary at all. He'd moved on. Those murders no longer defined him.

The following day did not improve by any substantial measure. Ryan vanished early in the morning along with Agent Weston and they were gone for hours, leaving Joe in the Bureau's interestingly arranged motel base room with a rather irritable Agent Max Hardy. Apparently, someone somewhere had served several warrants in the very early hours of the morning; that had left her with the contents of three PCs, two laptops, a tablet, four smartphones and a handful of USB memory devices to work her way through, and that was before she'd get to a thorough perusal of their online activities. She seemed less than impressed with the idea of Joe helping her with any of that at all, no matter how onerous the task actually was, but was also intent on keeping him under her watchful gaze and it seemed the simplest way for that to occur was to grudgingly work with him. 

He and Ryan had actually written an article on the identification of online predators via behavioural markers, with a prototypical tool for assistance in doing so, which had apparently become quite popular with law enforcement professionals throughout the trial phase. He sat down next to Max, closer than she was comfortable with but not so close that she could accuse him of anything overtly dastardly, and actually set forth a concerted effort to be helpful to her. He supposed he might have slipped into something of a teacher mode, which was not necessarily a bad thing when his past before his _history_ was taken into consideration; he'd had a good record with the university prior to his conviction and more recently he'd lent a hand with thesis supervision for Ryan's little cohort of criminology postgrads. They'd all signed waivers upon waivers upon waivers in order to cover the situation, of course, and their Skype meetings and general correspondence had been closely monitored for every conceivable issue that could ever arise, but the three students had all been very enthusiastic if a little nervous to work with him. Of course, they'd all signed up with Ryan in the first place knowing that he shared a rather special relationship, academic and otherwise, with Joe Carroll. They'd probably had their fingers crossed for this unofficial joint supervision, understanding that at least some of Ryan's time was taken up by his FBI consultation, and occasionally by agencies farther afield.

For the past couple of days, however, Joe had to say that his relationship with Ryan had felt just a smidge less special. Joe was out and about and making himself useful to an official investigation and Ryan was either nowhere to be found or decidedly less than interested in the task at hand when, judging from past experience, this should have been a very special time for them both. They should have been celebrating, to the degree that that was possible. Unfortunately, Ryan seemed to disagree.

As predicted, there was nothing more interesting than a small cache of pornography there on any of the devices, and none of that was anything terribly racy even if some of it was clearly the product of illegal download. Six hours of work and between them, once Max had decided he actually did sound like he knew what he was looking for and admitted she thought this was just as much of a wild goose chase as he did, sitting at opposite sides of the same beaten-up old desk borrowed from who knew where, they'd shared out the work and waded their way through it. Of course, he'd had an agent standing over him every second and although that seemed to him to be a thorough waste of manpower, it had seemed to put Max's mind at ease around him, at least to some extent. But there was nothing useful there. Just as Joe had told her before they'd even begun. Sometimes police work was terribly tedious.

He fetched them both a coffee from the semi-functional machine that the agents had dragged in and set across the room, made hers the way he knew Ryan took it and then sat back down opposite her. She sipped the coffee without thinking about it, looked up at him and paused, then drank the coffee anyway. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. He hadn't been scowled at, cursed at, glared at or accused of poisoning, all of which seemed to indicate a step in the right direction. Perhaps also a step closer to winning the bet, if not winning her trust.

"So, tell me what you really think," she said. 

Joe raised his brows. "Are you sure you want to know?"

Max nodded, taking another sip of the coffee that was apparently passable in its Ryan-ready state, even if made by someone she so thoroughly despised. "Before I change my mind."

And so he did. And she agreed, though it seemed she found it painful at first to admit that she did. She took the theory to Agent Mendez, who agreed with it much more freely. The three of them sat down at Max's PC and they searched the Winslow student body for their suspect, for the individual indicated by Joe's rather precise new profile. They were still working through the lists two hours later, having whittled down the potential pool from thousands to a shortlist of perhaps twenty or so of the likeliest, when they received the call that a seventh victim had been found. Of course, the call had come from Ryan. It wasn't Joe that he spoke to.

Mendez drove. Max was less than impressed that Joe took the front passenger side but dealt with her irritation admirably as they sped to the crime scene and somehow Joe was unsurprised, and also utterly disgusted, to find that the victim had been posed on a bench outside his former home. She was reading a cheap mass-market paperback of Poe's collected poems with her inadequately excised eyes. The book was fixed open at the first page of _The Raven_ and it didn't _mean_ anything. There was no poetry to it in the awkward staging, the cheap book probably fresh from an internet order, and the idiot responsible in all likelihood hadn't read any further into Edgar Allan Poe than _The Raven_ , if he'd actually read that far. It was sickening. 

"We've got a suspect seen fleeing the scene," Agent Weston informed them when he'd jogged over from where he'd been comforting the rather distraught new householders. No doubt they'd be moving again ASAP. Joe would have bet that friends and family had warned them not to buy it all along. "5'10, long hair, glasses. Headed out on foot."

Max shuffled through the student photos she'd collected on her tablet; there were two students roughly matching the description and she shared the photos to various smartphones.

"Max, you go with Mendez and locate Peterson," Weston told them. "Ryan, take Joe and find Evans. I'll be with the team here. Call for backup before you approach."

Max frowned. Weston was already walking away with three agents around him, waving his arms as if directing traffic there on Joe's old front lawn. Mendez took off for her SUV without waiting for Max. 

"This isn't such a great idea," Max said, completely unable to keep herself from glancing at Joe as she said it, shifting her weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. It must have been hard on her, taking orders from her ex-husband-slash-current-boyfriend _and_ from her uncle; she was quite the little firecracker, which Joe had to admire in a way. And she clearly didn't agree with this, no matter her position - or lack thereof - in the official Bureau hierarchy.

Ryan crossed his arms over his chest and he looked at her levelly, steadily. "Don't you trust me?" he asked, and in that moment Joe realised he knew that look. He knew precisely what it meant, though he said nary a word about it. It was wonderfully startling, definitely intriguing, to see it directed at Max.

For four years he'd seen that look only in flashes, glimpses, and wished he knew how to elicit it at will because _that_ was Ryan. That was the essence of him, the part Joe had known was there all along but that Ryan kept hidden, guarded in public and rarely showed even behind closed doors. That was the Ryan he'd written his letters to and for, and the Ryan who'd responded with such expansive and profound desire, without pretence. In that moment Ryan stopped hiding, and it was thrilling to see. It was exhilarating.

Max sighed and turned and she walked away because she _did_ trust him; she didn't realise she shouldn't have. She didn't see it though he'd been staring her right in the face in the most literal of senses. She had no idea at all.

***

He hadn't understood it at first. He'd woken in hospital, in a bed with sheets that must have started out overly starchy but that had clearly had some use since he'd been lying there. He seemed to have bled on them recently. He could barely move. He could barely even open his eyes and to be frank he'd been rather confused that he could do even that much. 

He'd thoroughly expected to die there in that infernal walk-in freezer, bleeding all over himself, the floor and Ryan. He'd planned it that way, albeit a plan that he'd formed in a fraction of a second as he'd raised the knife; he'd honestly believed it was the ending that fit to his story, and then there he was in a hospital bed surrounded by monitors and a nurse who actually shrieked a little as she saw him waking. She scampered off to the door, though whether that was to find a doctor or to vomit in the nearest bathroom was entirely debatable. 

He hadn't been able to move and when he'd managed to focus his attention to a sufficient degree he'd understood why; there were restraints on the bed, wrapped rather snugly around his wrists and ankles as though somehow he were about to spring from unconsciousness and bolt for the door. He didn't feel as though he'd be bolting anywhere for quite some time, especially given the interesting condition of his leg. He learned later that he'd nicked something rather vital - aside from the artery that had come so very close to killing him, of course - that would leave him with some form of limp for the rest of his days. As it happened, it was so fractional a limp that on the good days it was barely even noticeable. Of course, on the bad days he did feel like losing the whole sorry mess might have been a suitable alternative.

Surprisingly, his bed hadn't been the only one in the room. He supposed that the room had actually been designed for at least two beds and so he couldn't exactly be _too_ surprised by that, but until fairly recently he'd been kept almost entirely separate from the majority of other prisoners whenever possible, let alone left alone with members of the public at large. But, of course, upon closer inspection when he finally managed to bring his vision into focus, the bed's occupant was his dear, darling husband. 

Ryan had looked at him and smiled a barely-there smile as he did so, the sort that was so faint that Joe liked to think he was the only person who knew him well enough to spot it there. He probably was. That particular side of Ryan didn't play at all well with others. 

"You're gonna live," Ryan told him, almost under his breath, the words barely there. "I'll make it worth it if you do." 

Joe believed it even as he slipped back toward unconsciousness, with a feeling that it wasn't the first time Ryan had said it, that he meant it, he repeated it. But he didn't understand. And right then, as they walked away from the crime scene, he knew three years had passed since that day and that he'd never understood. But he was about to. He shivered with anticipation.

"This isn't the way." Joe sat in the passenger side of the SUV, not Ryan's car, possibly not even FBI but obviously there was no way to be sure. Of course, Ryan _wasn't_ technically FBI: he was just a consultant, though quite frequently called upon. He had a permit to carry a weapon, he had a temporary badge assigned to him on occasion, but he was really just a citizen like any other. A citizen with a twist, at least. 

"Yeah," Ryan replied, though that was hardly an answer. Joe supposed he hadn't actually asked a question, more like made a perfectly obvious statement, and so couldn't exactly fault him for it.

"We're not actually trying to find Evans."

"No." Ryan glanced at him in the dark cabin of the SUV and the light from passing headlamps flashed over his eyes. Joe's chest tightened; his nerves jangled. It was a pleasant feeling, the excitement of it, as realisation dawned. The real Ryan had not gone away. It wasn't temporary. It wasn't a mistake. "You saw the files, Joe. It's not Evans."

"He's a first year postgraduate with a perfect GPA and a particular interest in early modern war poetry," Joe said. "Of _course_ it's not him." 

Peterson, on the other hand, was a C-average sophomore majoring in film with a portfolio of poorly edited 'artistic' horror shorts, all of which he'd clearly made with drunken classmates on the college grounds. There was an overblown summer research project on his record, exploring techniques for the realistic reproduction of blood on film. It was so horribly, glaringly obvious that it was very close to painful. The Bureau had expended so much effort on this, when Joe and Ryan could have solved the whole case in 24 hours. _This_ was Joe Carroll's copycat, this sad, talentless hack. He probably fancied himself a genius when he wasn't even paying classy homage to the original; he was just a creatively-challenged fanboy without the skill set to do the material justice or the intellect to realise that was the case.

And none of that explained where exactly they were going, if not to find Evans. Who was probably in his room masturbating feverishly over Wilfred Owen with no earthly idea that the FBI had him on their suspect list.

They drove for just under fifteen minutes, past the Winslow campus and out into the rather leafy suburbs that adorned the opposite side of the town. He and Claire had had friends there once, a history professor who Joe had played golf with on occasion and his wife, a primary care physician with whom Claire liked to lunch from time to time. They'd eaten dinner together more than once, back when Joe had seemed normal and Claire hadn't wanted him dead. He and Claire had had so many friends. He'd fooled them all, which still felt like quite an accomplishment. Sometimes he wondered what their reactions had been when the news came.

It was quiet and dark and they drove in silence, unusual for at least one of them but Joe knew he knew Ryan well enough to understand that if he asked him questions he'd find they went unanswered. He didn't enjoy the sound of his own voice quite enough to ruin this, whatever it turned out to be. Instead, he checked through all of the things he'd ever suspected that Ryan could have done to make his living somehow _worth it_.

At first, he'd thought it just might be a jailbreak. He'd seen the change in Ryan that night at the twins' house, he'd watched him as he killed; there'd been not a fraction of a moment's hesitation to it and more than that, deeper than that, there'd been no remorse. And then he'd looked at Joe and offered him his throat and he'd have let him do it, perhaps even wanted him to do it, he had no doubt. And he'd thought that perhaps, just perhaps, that change he'd seen in Ryan when all the conflict in him fell away, it might have been profound enough to have pushed him beyond his limits. Ryan might have broken. 

He'd looked for the signs each time he'd seen him after that for quite some time, for more than a year at least. Whenever they'd been together, in the hospital before his discharge back to custody or after that, when they'd been together in private, really _been_ together, he'd had it in the back of his mind that Ryan might just have a crackpot escape plan up his sleeve. But nothing had come of it, he'd seen no signs, then they'd made their little bet that seemed to contradict the notion wholly, and slowly he'd found himself giving in to the moment more and more instead of searching it for answers. They slept in the same bed once every month and he started to forget to check Ryan's motives for it. Ideas in reserve for their prison break destination became daydreams and frankly, when the surprise escape hadn't come he'd been almost relieved. What they'd had then was worthwhile. He'd have gladly left prison, of course, but he'd have missed the life they had, the odd legitimacy of it. And more than that, he'd have wanted to be in on the joke.

Sometimes, he wondered if _worth it_ had been his second doctorate, the reorientation in his life that Ryan had been so instrumental in effectuating. It had been his suggestion, seemingly offhand, that had planted the seed in Joe's mind, that was the origin to which he traced his strange new career, his new purpose, and for some time he'd wondered if that hadn't been Ryan's plan all along. He had the distraction of violent crime without personal involvement on a practical level and he had to say he found satisfaction in it. But there had never been more evidence than his own vague paranoia that the circumstance had been contrived, and he supposed that allowing Ryan to act as a surrogate conscience was good for all concerned. Joe certainly had little morality of his own.

There were other theories, of course. He considered that Ryan may have meant the words on a vastly more personal level, that he'd try to give Joe everything he'd wanted from their rather bizarre liaison, and that fit to an extent because his time with Ryan _had_ changed. The sound of Joe's own voice did still account for the majority of their time together but Ryan seemed a fraction more willing to listen. Touch between them became freer, more casual, and occasionally even lacked its previous violence. He'd started to notice the change in subtle ways, how Ryan no longer moved away so abruptly at inevitable unintentional contact, how he was willing to hold Joe's gaze a moment longer than before, how he let Joe trace the lines of scars with his fingertips when they lay naked together in the starchy prison bed, even the one at his heart. And, of course, they spoke more; granted, the majority of what Ryan had to say did refer to their work, but there were rare occasions when he opened up just a little more, a little further, and those were occasions that Joe found he craved. There would be a brief flash of something, a firewall triggered that required Ryan's deliberate override, and then he'd speak about a conversation that he'd had with Max, his classes, his work, his past. He'd once spoken about his father, though it was clearly a conversation he did not wish to have; Joe, for once, had quite sensibly kept his clever mouth shut. These moments were the closest Ryan came to offering his own story, the way that Joe had once upon a time. 

And, of course, there was always the very simple explanation that the words had meant absolutely nothing at all. Perhaps he'd misremembered. Perhaps Ryan had expected him to die. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

Ryan slowed the SUV and pulled up to the kerb in a quiet, residential area that had sprung up since Joe's conviction. He turned his head and looked at Joe, his hands still resting on the wheel; the light of the streetlamps struck the angles of his face and made him seem unreal; the look on his face was a story whose ending Joe just couldn't guess. This was Ryan's story. Joe couldn't wait to find out where he was taking it.

"Stay quiet and follow me," Ryan said. Joe did so, letting himself out of the car. The words had meant something; he was positive about that now. He was so close to finding out.

The man in the house they walked into was not their suspect. Nor was he the suspect that Max and Agent Mendez were on their way to apprehend. Ryan told Joe his name was Ray Danner and when Joe walked into the living room and saw him there sleeping on the couch in the darkened room in front of the flickering television, all of the pieces began to drop into place. It was dizzying. It was awful. It was worth the wait.

He was the one who'd got away. He was the killer who'd watched with a gun in each hand as Mark Gray gave them a choice, as Joe chose Ryan above himself. He'd got away. He wouldn't get away again. 

***

Joe shoved Ryan up against the motel room wall, and he held him there with his hand pressed to his throat. Ryan let him. Ryan actually took two handfuls of his shirt and pulled him in closer, harder. The motel room walls were too thin for this to be private but neither of them seemed to care. It was hardly likely to be the worst those walls had seen.

Pupil dilation made Ryan's blue eyes shade in darker. His eyes said he wanted this. Joe felt it would almost be rude to disappoint.

He pushed him down. There had always been an element of violence between the two of them, had always been times when Ryan would visit and Joe would say something, or he'd pointedly _not_ , or they'd just look at each other and the next thing would be bruised ribs and black eyes, twisted wrists, scraped knuckles, split lips and Joe's breathless laughter. No one had ever given a damn how - or potentially _if_ \- Joe left that room and as long as Ryan didn't have to be removed on a stretcher then everything seemed to go along swimmingly. This was hardly a fight, however, just a momentary scuffle wherein they established the parameters of the encounter, where Joe shoved Ryan down hard and Ryan pulled him with him, down onto the bed, gripping tight at Joe's biceps as they landed in a tangle of limbs and a strange hard bounce against the mattress. Ryan pulled Joe in, pulled him down against him, dragging him in by the back of his neck, and Joe pushed one arm down between the two of them, the heel of his hand pressing over the front of Ryan's jeans. From the look on Ryan's face it was hard to tell if he wanted fuck him or kill him. Joe thought they'd do one and then think about the other.

He knew every part of Ryan's body, the natural curvature of his spine from atlas to coccyx, the planes of his scapulae, the arches of his feet. He'd sometimes press his mouth to the back of Ryan's neck and run his nails down the length of his spine, fingertips dipping down to tease at his arse and Ryan would push himself up on his elbows just far enough to turn his head and give him a look before he pillowed his head back down on his arms again. It was never a look of _cease and desist_ and that was just as well. Joe liked to explore, found himself perpetually inquisitive where Ryan was concerned. Except for this time. This time was something else.

Kneeling astride Ryan's waist, his fingers went to his belt buckle, plucked it open abruptly. Ryan lifted his hips as Joe's fingers hooked into the waist of jeans and boxers both and he pulled down hard, baring him waist to knees. A moment, Ryan leaning up to pull at the buckle of Joe's belt in return, then Joe practically pulled him over onto his stomach, yanked him up to his hands and knees, shoving down his own trousers over his hips, urgent and insistent. Ryan arched his back and spread his thighs; Joe lubed his cock rather liberally - apparently Ryan had come prepared for this eventuality - and then, hands still slippery, skin flushed, he pushed inside him in one long, deep thrust. Ryan actually honest-to-God moaned with it, and that was something new. It was almost the end of Joe right then and there. 

He felt like he'd been hard for an hour by that point, since they'd gone off script or and Ryan had led him into that house. Ryan hadn't hesitated for a moment; he'd walked over to the sleeping killer and gestured to Joe, produced a knife from his jacket pocket and tossed it to him across the room. Then he caught the man's hands, knelt over his exposed neck to keep him quiet and looked at Joe, darkly, hotly. Expectant.

Joe had come alive in that moment, utterly. He'd felt just like his old self again, bright and deadly and vivid, real, not the shade of himself that he'd faded into, painted in the mute colours of the federal prison he called home. And Ryan's look was almost adoration. Of course, you really had to know Ryan to tell that apart from a hundred other emotions, disdain or disgust, furor or frenzy, but Joe knew him. He was surprised, surprised to the point where he almost thrummed with it from head to toe, as he flicked the knife open and came in closer. He settled one knee down over the man's shins as he struggled there, trying to kick out because the conclusion here was obvious, and he looked at Ryan. They'd kissed then, roughly, deeply, as Joe pushed home the knife. 

They drove back in the dark SUV, the silence hanging between them, taut and tantalising. Joe's mind was buzzing, assessing what he knew, assessing everything he'd thought he'd known, trying to truly comprehend what exactly it was that had just happened between them. His body had reacted so very strongly to the kill, despite the fact that this was so different to his usual preference. And then there was Ryan with his eyes on the road and his hands almost shaking. Ryan had known exactly where he was going, exactly where he was taking him. He'd known exactly what they'd find there. He'd had the knife in his pocket, ready. He'd known just what to do. 

He'd planned it. 

They fucked slow and deep and hard, Joe's hands gripping Ryan's hips. One hand strayed up, nails raking upwards over the length of Ryan's back, pushing up his shirt as far as it would go then moving to his neck, skimming around to hold at his throat though he didn't quite squeeze. Ryan's hands moved up to the headboard, one at a time, bracing himself and then pushing back with his new leverage, his breath coming quickly. Joe pulled up his own shirt with his free hand, pulled back to pull it up and off and over his head without bothering to open the buttons, and then slipped his hands down, around to Ryan's chest, pressing his palms there as he eased him up off his hands, up to his knees, Ryan's sweat-slicked back pressed to his chest. He bit down at the back of Ryan's shoulder, slipped a hand to Ryan's cock and Ryan's hands went back to grip tight at Joe's thighs over his trousers. Joe could see them both in the mirror, met Ryan's gaze in the mirror, pornographic, obscene, more intense than it had ever been before because now he understood.

Ryan had planned it. 

Three years had passed since that day, since everything had changed between them, since Joe had tried - quite unsuccessfully - to take his own life to save Ryan's. He hadn't realised exactly what he'd meant to do until he'd practically done it already, though afterwards he'd spent some time trying to sort out why. Ryan had bared his throat, given him a chance to do exactly what he'd wanted since the very moment they'd met, and in that second, in perfect clarity, Joe had known he couldn't do it. Ryan had changed; more accurately, he'd started to let the truth of him bleed through from the periphery, into reality. He'd let go; Joe couldn't end that just as soon as it began.

Three years had passed. Ryan had planned this all along. And now that Joe knew, suddenly everything made sense. 

Ryan's work with the FBI. The enthusiasm he'd had for Max joining the Bureau, and for continuing with online crime. The way he'd encouraged Mike Weston to put his career back on track. Collaboration overseas. Little suggestions that had led Joe straight into his new-found career path. Little details that all added up to one thing: he'd planned it all along. He'd planned everything to bring them to that moment, each detail building upon the last to bring them to that kill, and to its aftermath. To this.

Ryan came with a shout and took him with him, shuddering, spent, breathless. He'd taken him along with him for years. He scale of his deception was utterly vertiginous.

He ought to have been livid, he thought, as they shed their clothes after and stretched out together, naked and close. He ought to have been furious, lit up with rage because he knew he'd been manipulated into this, each step of the way, and not for a moment had he seen it coming. He ought to have rejected him then, absolutely and immediately, found the knife and finished this the way he'd always thought it ought to finish. But Ryan rested his forehead down against Joe's and closed his eyes. Joe slipped one hand to the back of Ryan's neck and let his eyes close, too. He felt peaceful. He felt alive. Somehow, in spite or because of everything, he felt loved.

He tried not to think about Emma, so earnest and so loyal. She'd never understood that he just couldn't love her the way that she wanted. He'd appreciated her in his way, but real love was a rich, dense emotion, so unlike anything he'd ever thought to call love before - that had always come from fiction, more a fancy than a feeling and certainly not truth. She'd never seen she was at best the Julia to his Micah; perhaps he wouldn't have chosen to end her life himself but it would have always been easy enough to allow someone else to do so, had it come to that. His last thought of her was really just that he'd feel the loss of her devotion; he found it hard to miss _her_. 

"Good surprise?" Ryan asked. Joe could still feel the quickened beat of his heart in the pulse in his neck where he rested his hand. 

"Good surprise," he confirmed. 

This wasn't the finish, the endgame of Ryan's plans; this was just the start, and that thought was intoxicating. To find one name, Ryan would have had to have found them all. He had a list and he'd saved that list for the two of them. He had a list, and he'd engineered it all so that Joe would be there with him, so they'd be there together to start the pursuit of all of Lily's suitors, all the killers she'd ever found. All of the successful couples Joe had ever known had shared some kind of enthusiasm, hiking or photography or some other mundanity, a hobby they put away time for, sacrificed for, that would have bored Joe quite literally to tears. This was hardly a pottery class or couples' yoga.

"How many are there?" he asked, the question seemingly offhand but charged, important. It spoke to Ryan's plans.

Ryan's hand pressed flat and hot to the small of Joe's back. "In North America?" He pulled back just far enough to look him in the eye, holding his gaze steadily. "Twenty-seven left."

"You never cease to amaze me, Ryan." And that much was true; Ryan seemed to be suggesting something tantalising, something unexpected. Something like they should take up a hobby, and the serial murder of serial murderers just might be that hobby. Knowing Ryan, they'd even get away with it.

Perhaps he should have objected but _how_ could he object? He'd chosen Ryan Hardy as his conscience, as his guide to the virtues he so obviously lacked. He'd conformed because of that, still quite open as concerned his desires though he'd seen himself enjoying his conformity, legitimacy, propriety. But he'd been wrong to assume that that conscience - Ryan - was entirely moral, in the conventional sense. He was something else. Conformity, rehabilitation, acceptability, was not the aim. It had never been the aim.

Perhaps he should have objected. But where Lily Gray had wanted to control him, what Ryan was doing here was setting him free. With _this_ Ryan as his moral compass, anything was possible.

***

Morning came and, of course, Joe knew he'd be returned to prison. This little excursion had only ever been temporary, after all.

They ate a less than gourmet breakfast in their room and then emerged by 8am. Joe changed into his prison clothes and they joined the rest of the team in the strange motel room base camp that they were packing away rather swiftly. The case was done. They were moving out and moving on; Mike Weston's little task force no doubt had another case to work. 

"He has to go back," Agent Weston said, gesturing to Joe. 

"Well, I wasn't planning a dramatic escape," Joe said. "I wouldn't exactly get far dressed like this, now would I."

Weston made a sound that might have been amusement. Mendez returned to packing away her files and pretended she hadn't been listening. Max rolled her eyes, but she was almost smiling in spite of herself.

They'd explained away their disappearance the previous evening with surprising ease. Ryan had already checked out their suspect and when the call had come in that Max and Mendez had the killer in custody, they'd already been making their return. No one even asked a question of them. They'd all been far too busy revelling in their victory to notice that Ryan and Joe returned a fraction later than the rest. Thus was the beauty of Agent Weston heading their team, with Max and Mendez just a short way down the food chain. They were practically family. They would never suspect.

The return journey was just as awkward as their journey there. The day passed slowly, Max and Weston attempting to keep up their pretence that neither was attracted to the other, that there was nothing happening between them, though they were fooling no one and Joe failed to see the point of trying given present company. He and Ryan were hardly the model for socially acceptable relationships. He sat in the back seat with Ryan, discussing the flaws in their students' theses, finding that in spite of recent events he did still find some satisfaction in his own academic achievement. Perhaps conformity served a purpose after all, bridging the gaps while keeping observers off guard.

They exited the vehicle at the prison gates, stretched as Agent Weston went to satisfy the guards on duty that they actually had business there. Joe stepped up behind Ryan, wrapped his arms around his waist, rested his chin on his shoulder from behind as he looked up at the prison walls. He was home. 

Ryan reached as if this were perfectly natural, barely a movement except to lean back just a fraction against Joe's chest. Three guards, Max and Mike Weston all looked at them oddly but Ryan just reached up, reached back and rubbed not quite absently at the back of Joe's neck as if he hadn't noticed their observers. It was exactly the kind of casual display of affection that they'd never even had in private before that point, let alone in public. It now seemed natural somehow, in spite of the way Max was staring daggers at the two of them, looking disconcerted. Their intimacy should have disturbed him. He found it strangely warming, now they'd stopped pretending that they weren't the same, now Ryan had actually shown him that in a way, they were.

They went inside; the guards shackled him rather roughly but that was far from unexpected. They were never terribly pleased to have him back, he thought, but never too pleased when he left them, either. Max signed him back into custody. Joe took a deep breath and gave Ryan a wry smile. He'd write him a letter that evening, he thought. He had a few things to say.

They turned to leave and the guards gave Joe a guiding push toward the corridor back to his cell. He heard one set of footsteps stop, the squeak of a rubber sole turning on linoleum. 

"Thanks," Mike Weston said, the word sudden and rather unexpected. Joe half-turned, looked back over his shoulder. Weston gave him an almost grudging nod of acknowledgement, a slightly laboured smile, and nudged Max in the ribs. She sighed.

"Thanks, Joe," she said. "I won't say we couldn't've done it without you, but." She paused and clenched her jaw like the thought physically pained her before she finally continued. "I think you actually helped save some lives on this."

Joe shrugged in his cuffs, the chains jangling, magnanimous in that moment because in one fell swoop he'd won his bet with Ryan. He did so like to win. 

"You're welcome, Max," he said, and didn't even sound too overtly condescending with it. He did still have it in him to be charming, even shackled in a federal prison. "Agent Weston. Perhaps we'll do this again sometime."

"Don't push it," Max muttered. Ryan chuckled and clapped both of them fondly on the back, and then Max and Weston turned again to walk away. Ryan lingered, because Joe had won the bet. They both knew what that meant; Joe fairly buzzed with it. Even incarceration couldn't ruin his good humour now.

Joe didn't say _I'll miss you_ , though he knew he would in his own way. He didn't say _I love you_ , though he knew he meant that, too, to the extent he could. Instead, he said, "I'll see you soon." It wasn't quite a question, hanging between them, charged; everyone else who heard it remained utterly oblivious. 

The look they shared meant nothing to anyone else who saw it, but it set Joe on fire. It was just like a promise. 

"Yeah," Ryan said, with the smallest of smiles. "You will."


End file.
